chroot

- change root directory for a command

Synopsis

/usr/sbin/chrootnewrootcommand

Description

The chroot utility causes command to be executed relative to newroot. The
meaning of any initial slashes ( / ) in the path names is changed
to newroot for command and any of its child processes. Upon execution,
the initial working directory is newroot.

Notice that redirecting the output of command to a file,

chroot newroot command >x

will create the file x relative to the original root of command,
not the new one.

The new root path name is always relative to the current root.
Even if a chroot is currently in effect, the newroot argument is
relative to the current root of the running process.

This command can be run only by the super-user.

Return Values

The exit status of chroot is the return value of command.

Examples

Example 1 Using the chroot Utility

The chroot utility provides an easy way to extract tar files (see
tar(1)) written with absolute filenames to a different location. It is necessary to
copy the shared libraries used by tar (see ldd(1)) to the newroot
filesystem.